we are the impact and the glue
by BerryliciousCheerio
Summary: They've never talked about kids. / or: sometimes the heart is broken in the mending


**so listen**

**i know ive been gone for like. more than a year at this point BUT im in college AND i was taking back to back creative writing courses that sort of creatively drained me? if that makes sense? but also made me so much more confident in my abilities as a writer so its a trade off i guess ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ **

**ANYWAY im back and gayer and softer than ever**

**its been a while since i dipped my toe in the superbabies verse, but i started writing this piece more than a year ago (maybe more than two? im really unsure bc of the sheer amount of wips i start and then abandon halfway) and it honestly has been nagging at me to finish it SO instead of working on the deanoru au i started (which is clocking in at 12k+ rn and isnt even like...1/4 done) or completing the trimberly au thats been taunting me for about a year now, i decided to finish this!**

**its soft and gay and i hope you all like it as much as i do**

**catch ya on the flipsides my cool cats**

**(also lemme know if u can tell where i stopped writing for a year and then picked back up! im honestly interested to see if my writing has changed a lot in my time away!)**

**((also canon is dead to me, dont me))**

**disclaimed**

* * *

**...**

* * *

They've never talked about kids, Lena realizes abruptly one night when she's, of all things, glued to the television and watching Kara battle it out with a pair of six-armed Fort Rozz escapees. She's not sure what brought the thought about—it probably started surfacing when Kara ducked a blow and swooped down to move a little girl that had wandered into the street out of danger, making sure to tuck the stuffed animal she'd dropped back into her arms.

It doesn't fully land until she's watching Kara get slammed into the concrete by one of her opponents and seeing the DEO agents on the ground rushing forward. In the seconds before Kara staggers to her feet and shakes it off, Lena thinks about how very little they've talked about the future. How so much of that is Lena's doing, too afraid that she'll lose Kara one way or another the moment she starts laying down plans.

She's not sure she wants to continue like this anymore, not when she has Kara, more than human, better than she could ever dream of being—why put it off when she has the best partner to plan with?

It's become routine in the nearly four years they've been together; Kara is injured and ends up in the DEO's med bay, Alex fussing over her until Lena arrives and accepts the baton. She beats them to the DEO this time, lead foot on the gas and emotion pressing against her ribcage, making it hard to think anything other than _Kara, Kara, Kara_.

Kara had managed to get her clearance for certain areas of the DEO as a present for their anniversary a couple years ago, meaning that Lena no longer had to wait outside the building until Alex or Winn or J'onn arrived and took her to Kara. It's something that Lena's never taken for granted, this trust in the form of an ID card, pressed into her hands so gently. But it's moments like these that she's so grateful for it that she could cry.

Lena waits in the medical room, seated beside the sun bed that Kara's sure to be relegated to for the next few hours. When Kara limps in, leaning heavily on J'onn with Alex just behind them, lips pressed into a thin line, Lena straightens in her chair, slides her purse to the floor and stands.

She's not so foolish to think that she can help Kara more than J'onn can at the moment, or than Alex can in the next, but Kara's entire posture relaxes when she sees Lena and her smile is small, but Lena's still sure it could power at least the top ten floors of her building. Lena likes to thinks that she can help a little, at least.

She stays on her feet until Kara's been carefully rolled onto the sun bed, biting her lip as her girlfriend winces at the movement. J'onn is quick to leave, gruffly instructing, "Rest, Supergirl," before he disappears back into the maze of halls whence they came.

It's only when Alex starts her checks that Lena takes a seat. There's still a level of tension in the air, left over from the scare of watching a nigh-invincible superhero get thrown around like a ragdoll, so she stays quiet as Alex worries over her sister.

"You should've waited for back up," Alex scolds as she shines a light in Kara's eyes, checking her pupils. "That shit show could've been so much worse."

Kara scoffs, ducking the slap Alex aims for her shoulder. "How was I supposed to know they'd both have six arms?" she asks, the indignation in her tone clear. "Who expects twelve arms, Alex?"

"I—," Alex breaks off, swinging her gaze to Lena. "You're with me on this, Luthor," she more commands than asks, raising an eyebrow at her when Lena hesitates.

"Would you have guessed I'd be ducking twelve arms, Lee?" Kara asks, turning to pout at her girlfriend as well.

Oh no, absolutely not. Lena has learned never to get involved when the Danvers sisters argue, even over something relatively benign such as this, even when Kara's safe and they're arguing about things in the past. She says as much, earning a half-hearted glare from Kara ("We're not _that_ bad," she grumbles) and a look of begrudging respect from Alex, though she's obviously a little irritated she didn't side with her.

Lena won't say it out loud, at least not now when Kara's laid up like this, but she does agree with Alex.

"Alright dummy," Alex says finally, soothing any hurt from her tone with a kiss to Kara's forehead. "You've got to hang here for a couple hours to charge up. I'll be around, but I'm sure I won't want to be in here." She directs the last part towards Lena, giving her a significant look. A look that very obviously said _no 'I'm happy you're alive' sex until you are somewhere far away from me_.

Lena had no intentions of going against Alex's wishes—one intensely awkward encounter was more than enough for her.

After Alex leaves, it takes Kara all of a second before she's trying to sit up. "Oh no, no," Lena huffs, up on her feet in an instant and pushing Kara back onto the bed. "You're here until Alex clears you."

"I just wanted to kiss you," Kara whines.

Rather than responding, Lena leans forward to kiss her girlfriend chastely. Some of the urgency, the need to be near her has worn away now that Kara's in front of her, beneath her hands and lips and still so warm and whole. The sudden press for plans, for the future has dulled enough that Lena's heart settles back where it should be and some of the knots in her stomach untie themselves.

When Kara's this exhausted, she likes to just listen, to let someone else do the talking for once. It had taken Lena quite some time to adjust, to learn to ramble in detail about the tiny inconveniences of her day, but now it's second nature. She waits until Kara's settled back onto the sun bed before she starts in on her investor meeting this morning, the one she'd had to pry herself away from Kara for. The reminder sets Kara's cheeks aflame and Lena cuts herself off to tut, "You weren't blushing this morning," earning her a soft laugh, though it's tempered by the wince that immediately follows and Kara pressing a hand to her likely still bruised ribs.

That's enough to throw the reality of their lives back into Lena's face. The change must show on her face (and to think she used to be so proficient at hiding her emotions—just another thing lost in the wake of Kara Danvers), because then Kara's trying to sit up, grimacing as she goes.

"Alex told you to rest," Lena scolds her, pushing down on her shoulders in an attempt to get her girlfriend to lay back.

Kara relents, finally, but frowns up at Lena just the same. "What's wrong?" She points an accusatory finger at Lena—or, rather, Lena's forehead. "You're doing that thing with your eyebrows."

There's no use in lying—there's no instinct to either. Lena just shifts so that she's leaning her elbows on the edge of the sun bed and takes one of Kara's hands in her own, bringing it to her lips for a soft, brief kiss before setting it back at Kara's side. She clasps her own hands then, rests her chin on the back of one.

"Today was terrifying," she admits quietly. "Those moments before you got up were some of the—," she pauses, searching for the right word. "Some of the worst of my life."

Kara's brows draw together as she presses her lips into a thin line, the corners of her mouth twisting down. "Lena," she breathes and it looks like she wants to say more but they both know there's no promise she can make. Lena's made her peace with that.

"We should talk about this when you're not laid up like this—."

"_Lena_."

"Would you—I mean," she stumbles over the words. Stops, stills. Kara's always given Lena her full attention when she speaks and, by this time, Lena's used to it, used to someone caring about what she's saying and thinking and feeling, but now it feels heightened and she struggles to get around the lump growing in her throat. "Have you ever thought about—."

Lena's face heats up when she finds she can't force the words out. Because this should be easy, because this is Kara, but the words are sticking at the back of her throat and Lena can't find a work around for them.

There's gentle pressure on her hand and Lena looks down with a start, only just now noticing that Kara's pulled her clasped hands apart and is holding one in her own; she's leveling Lena with a soft, steady gaze, one that Lena's grown accustomed to receiving from Kara.

But this time feels different, more significant. Lena's has the altogether irrational thought that this is one of those _now or never_ moments, that if she doesn't ask the damn question, she'll never get around to it and, while she's entirely happy with the way things are now, there's a part of her that's itching for _tomorrow._

"Have you ever thought about the future?" Lena asks, and it's not the real question, but she hopes Kara understands what she's getting at. A small part of her berates herself for her words—_concise language, _some voice that sounds too much like Lillian hisses. Because they have talked about the future and they have even talked about _their_ future.

Finally, Lena asks in a small voice, "Kara, do you want children?"

And the moment hadn't been light by any means, but now it crystalizes, freezes, and the weight behind whatever answer Kara has feels like it could break this, break them. Because Lena's not sure if she wants children, but she's not sure that she doesn't, and this was the wrong time to bring this up, she knows, not now, not when Kara's exhausted and Lena's emotionally wrought. But she's said it and now, when she looks up, she sees the very careful way Kara's watching her.

Lena thinks she's seen that look before—that night when all the pieces fell into place for them, when Lena had finally put words to the warmth that would bloom in her chest every time Kara's smile was directed at her. When Kara gave her this look before she leaned in, before she asked if she could kiss Lena. It's not searching, really. Or, if it is, it's searching with a purpose, for recognition of something that Kara's feeling as well.

Which is why Lena's not all that surprised when Kara answers, "I'm not sure, but I think so. Maybe."

She leaves what would surely follow her answer unsaid—_only if you want them too. Only if things calm down. Only if I could keep them safe._ Only if the reality of their lives could somehow sync up with the reality that would be raising children.

"Oh," she hums, turning it over in her head. It's silly now, after she's the one that posed the question, but Lena's never really given the idea much thought. Never let herself wonder much further past the general nebulous concept of children. She loves children, a fact she only discovered a handful of years ago when she had the time and means to begin to partner with local orphanages and group homes; she knows Kara loves children, if the delight on her face whenever she clocked someone's baby at Catco was anything to go by. She shouldn't be so on edge because of an answer she knew was coming. "Right," she manages.

"Lena, that doesn't mean—."

"No, no, I'm not upset or—or anything like that." And she's not, truly. She's just—worried is probably the best word. Worried that she won't be able to give Kara everything she wants and deserves. Worried that the universe will intervene in some other horrifying way. "I just want so badly to—to be able to know I can give you that, if you want it."

Kara's hand slides over Lena's, palm warm when Lena flips her hand over to lace their fingers together. "That's—Lena, if we have children or not, it's not all on you. It'll be a decision we make, _together_. But," Kara murmurs, shifting to face Lena fully, "maybe you were right. This probably isn't the right time to talk about this."

It's not. Kara's bruised, exhausted, and Lena is drained, still reeling from the scare earlier in the night. She just wants to be home, with Kara; wants to be warm and safe and curled up in their bed—Kara's bed, technically, but that's more a formality than anything else. Lena wants to go home. She wants this all to feel settled, wants this weird _thing_ that's taken hold of her chest to go away.

Lena nods, lays her free hand over their conjoined ones. "Okay," she acquiesces. "I'll call Alex in?" When Kara nods, Lena stands, keeps her hands over Kara's for as long as she can as she moves towards the door. "But we're talking about this later."

**...**

It doesn't come up for another two years. Lena means to bring it up sooner, has a thousand different opening lines for that conversation, but any time she gets the nerve to, the universe has the perverse sense to throw another crisis their way; one time it's Lillian reappearing and wreaking havoc on one of L-Corp's production facilities in Bangkok, sending Lena halfway around the world for weeks and sending the DEO into crisis management mode to try and get a handle on whatever it was Lillian was planning.

The next time, it was the first weekend both she and Kara had absolutely zero work commitments and Lena had planned on it, she had, but then Kara had to help with a fire outside the city and when she came back, soot covered and smelling of smoke, burning rubber, she'd wanted a hot bath, a glass of wine, and to be held. Who was Lena to refuse her?

Time and time again, something came up. And now they're here and Kara's on one knee and Lena—Lena can't. Not with this hanging over them. Not with how far away Kara's eyes get when she talks about Krypton, talks about the traditions, the culture she lost in the losing of her home. When she thinks about how Kara will have to lose the promise of that all over again, just because Lena's unsure.

"Lee?" Kara breathes, starting to stand, to reach for Lena, but she shakes her head, shakes her off and joins her on the floor.

"We never talked about it."

"Talked about—?" Kara starts, before trailing off. "Oh. Yeah." She shifts so they can sit side by side, leaning up against the kitchen counters. Lena reaches up, back blindly, flips off the stove. They'd been in the middle of cooking dinner when Kara had asked. She doubts they'll get back to it, regardless of what happens next.

It gets very quiet. For several long minutes, the only thing Lena's human ears can hear are the sounds of her and Kara breathing—still in sync, still matching breath for breath—and the clock, relentless. Finally, she breaks the silence.

"I do," she says, staring at the wall, catching Kara turning towards her out of the corner of her eye. "I do want to marry you."

Kara lets out a breath, reaches for Lena's hand. She laces their fingers together, keeps looking at Lena while Lena moves her gaze to their joined hands. When it becomes clear she's not going to continue—at least not without a little push, like most things—Kara exhales, "Okay. Well, I want to marry you too." She pauses, then huffs out a laugh. "Obviously."

She pauses again. Squeezes Lena's hand gently. "So, we want to marry each other," she says slowly, waiting for a further explanation.

The words stick in Lena's throat, but she forces them out anyway. "I still—I'm still not sure—," she chokes on the rest of the sentence. Swallows the words instead.

She's not sure how to put it? Not sure the best way to say that she thinks she wants it—wants the kids and the house and the minivan, wants it all with Kara, but that she's still so scared, so worried that maybe Lillian broke her, made her something entirely incapable of the sort of love that parenthood requires.

But maybe—maybe, she thinks that Kara understands. Because she's nodding and pulling Lena into her lap and holding her close. "I want you," she assures her evenly. "Everything else is…everything else, you know? I want to marry you because you're you and _I love you_. Alright?"

Kara leans in, tilts her chin down, asking for something—through the fog, Lena recognizes the motion instinctually, leans in as well to rest her forehead against Kara's. "I love you too," she says in response. "I want to marry you."

"So that's a yes?"

"That's a yes."

**...**

"How would you want to go about it?" Lena asks, resting her chin on Kara shoulder and smiling at the baby in her arms.

They're on Earth-1, visiting Barry and Iris after the birth of their first child; Nora is wonderful, chubby and bright eyed and gurgling happily at every person that holds her. She's probably the strongest argument for parenthood that Lena's ever encountered.

Which is why she's even managing this now, even figuring out the words to put to her feelings. Kara lit up when baby Nora had been passed to her, her entire demeanor shifting, her attention moving immediately to the grinning infant in her arms and—god. Lena knew.

It was innate, inherent; in one moment, she wasn't considering it again, wasn't thinking about anything beyond how entirely adorable the baby was and the next her heart was cracking open at the very idea of having this, having Kara glowing, having a little baby that looked at them with as much adoration.

It was enough to make Lena think logistics; think about how Kara can't really pull off a pregnant superhero, but how she's a high dollar target for hitmen. Think about how just about every adoption agency will take a look at her name and turn them away.

She can't let her mind go too far, needs Kara's input first.

And—jesus. Kara's looking at her like she's a goddamn miracle.

"Are you serious?"

And it feels new, feels fragile still. Not them, but this sense of certainty within Lena, the cautious wonder in Kara's voice. She considers her next words carefully.

"I think," she starts slowly, "that it would be naïve of us to consider starting a family without first discussing specifics. What path we want to pursue, when we want to aim for—." Lena breaks off, catches her breath. Catches Kara staring at her, full of awe. "What?"

"You're not just saying this because you think it's what I want to hear, right?" Kara asks, brushing her hand over the downy hair on Nora's head. "You actually mean it?"

This thing, this part—it feels important. Like whatever Lena says or does now predicts their future trajectory.

She nods carefully, small smile growing wider to reflect Kara's blinding joy.

**...**

They talk to Alex, briefly, when they return. No specifics, just—is it possible? Is it silly to consider it? Lena is just as happy to adopt – slightly prefers it if she's being honest, even with the obvious additional hurdles they would face – but she knows the level of comfort afforded to Kara if they were to have a powered child, a child that she couldn't accidentally hurt somehow. Even if the thought terrifies Lena a little, takes her breath away.

But there's still that image in her mind, a little golden child, shining brighter than the sun itself. She wants that, Lena realizes. She desperately wants that.

"We don't have to," Kara says one night. They were just home from the DEO after Lena went through a battery of tests just to see if she was even a viable candidate and, quite frankly, Lena is exhausted from baby talk. Exhausted from learning all the ways it could go wrong and leave them bereft, devastated.

Lena's spent a lot of time crying over all those things—always when Kara's on Supergirl rotation, out of super hearing distance or too distracted by more pressing matters to listen. It could be fine, but Lena is human and fragile and this hypothetical baby may be as well, might be just as susceptible to the pitfalls of pregnancy, if not more so, combining two species' DNA. Even still—

"Don't be ridiculous," Lena huffs. She doesn't mean to be short, she really doesn't. But it's tiring to go over things she thought they'd already decided. "I'm fine."

"Lena."

Kara's watching her from the bed, cross legged and leaning up against the headboard while Lena busies her hands with anything – _anything_ but this. But facing facts. But approaching this head on.

She has to, though. They promised this in their vows: to always be honest with each other. To stop hiding the bad parts of themselves away.

"I'm _terrified_," she manages, tears springing unbidden. Kara reaches for her and Lena drops the laundry she was folding, crawls onto the bed to join her wife. "There are so many things that can go wrong."

"We don't have to—."

"I _want _to, though," Lena interrupts, tired of that same argument, knowing it was always made for her benefit. "I want this and now I know all the ways I may lose it."

Kara leans forward and pulls her close, one hand reaching up to pull the pins from Lena's bun, then the elastic before she shakes her hair free. "I'm scared too," she says quietly.

Lena doesn't know how to make this better, easier for them—that's Kara's wheelhouse, really. Always quick with a smile and something to take Lena's mind off whatever it is that's worrying her. Lena's not sure how she does it.

"But we're scared together, okay?" Kara murmurs, pulling Lena out of her own mind. "That's the beauty of it. We're in this together."

And she sounds so earnest and so entirely _Kara _that Lena can't help but nod, can't help but be pulled into her wife's embrace, can't help but collapse against her. Can't help but find some comfort in how her hands are a little unsteady as she begins to card through Lena's hair.

They're in this together. Lena can work with that.

**...**

Sometimes, late at night when Kara's been asleep for a few hours at least and Lena's kept up by the insistent pressure on her ribs – when it's just her and the kiddo awake, Lena's terrified. Which feels wrong, considering how much she wants this child, considering how happy she was when she found out about them. But sometimes, when it's very late and Lena presses a hand to her belly only to feel a little foot or elbow press back, she's choked by fear.

How is she to know for sure if she's even up to the task of motherhood? It's not as if she has any shining examples to follow; her own mother – her birth mother – is little more than a fever dream now, the ghost of a hand pressed to her forehead when she was very small and very ill, the lullaby she finds herself humming when she's particularly tired or worried.

And Lillian – well. At the very least, Lillian serves as a playbook of what exactly she should _not _do.

Here is the root of her fear then: it's not that Lena doesn't want this child. It's that she wants them _so much_, perhaps more than she had wanted L-Corp, perhaps more than she had wanted Kara – and there's a part of her that worries that the universe will realize that she has already been given too much.

With each passing day, Lena loves the little person she carries even more. And with each passing day, she knows the price she would pay were she to lose them grows exponentially.

Loving a hero – that comes with its own terrible math. Lena knows it well, has done it time and time again to try and pinpoint exactly how much it would hurt to lose Kara, how terribly she would be devastated in her absence. She's dedicated an inordinate amount of time to thinking about the stop-gap measure she'd need to put in place to ensure that she wouldn't slip down the same path as Lex had, that she wouldn't let heartbreak and grief cloud her vision so entirely that she could not see the good of the world anymore.

But there is no math to be done with a child. Anything Lena can imagine now – she knows it would be worse. Ten times, a hundred times, an infinity of grief that would only get worse as the years pass, as she marks what would have been their birthday, their prom, their graduation.

She's not sure there are enough stop-gaps or safety measures or reminders in the world that could keep her mind free of that awful, mind-numbing grief.

On very bad nights, she's started wondering if that's what really sent Lillian towards Cadmus; not the loss of Lena – she'd never dream of ranking so high in her mother's priorities – but the loss of Lex. He may be living, but her brother is little more than a shell of himself and, perhaps, that might be worse.

Was that what truly did Lillian in? She'd never been all that warm or caring of a mother before, but she hadn't been so outright cruel – had made an effort even, sometimes. But then Lex happened.

The few times she's mentioned these fears to her therapist, she'd been redirected to the question of whether Lillian had ever actually been a mother to Lena or if that was just the remnants of the woman's emotional abuse talking. But even if it was, the fear remains.

Tonight, she can't seem to remain still and slips out of bed slowly, trying as hard as she can to allow her wife to remain asleep. Kara's taken to getting up and staying up with her whenever she can't sleep, but that's unsustainable for them both and, when it comes down to it, Lena can move around her schedule to allow for napping – the perks of owning your own company.

The nursery is across the hall, the door left open and windows cracked just the slightest to allow the lingering smell of fresh paint to air out. They'd painted it mint (_Seafoam green_, she hears Kara admonish her) the weekend before, but the smell had stuck around. Even still – Lena loves to be in here.

The furniture isn't assembled yet, but it's all here, boxes placed roughly where they've planned on the actual pieces to go. There's stacks of onesies and tiny pairs of socks in storage containers, a short-term solution until the dresser they picked out is set up.

And there, in the corner, is Lena's favorite thing.

When Lena had mentioned, off hand, the faint memory she had of being rocked to sleep by her mother when she was very small – no older than two, she thinks, for the timing to be right – she hadn't thought anything of it when Kara had asked if she remembered what the chair looked like. She had, in fact, and she'd been so pleased for a reason to speak it into existence that she hadn't considered what it might mean that her wife was so interested in a chair from thirty years ago.

When Kara had told her to cover her eyes before she led her into then-office, the meaning became quite clear, quite quickly.

The glider looks old and comfortable, more like the one that she remembers than Lena even thought possible. For the briefest moment when she had first seen it, she had actually wondered if Kara had somehow gone back in time to retrieve it – it wouldn't have been the most outlandish thing Kara had done just to be sweet to her.

Lena had cried then, when Kara had led her into the room to see the first piece of the nursery in place, their desks shifted aside to make room in the windowed corner with the best view.

She still feels just on the edge of tears now as she pads into the room and eases into the chair, hooking her foot around the leg of the ottoman to pull it closer and prop her feet up on it.

It's silly but – even the deep emerald upholstery _feels _the same. Lena remembers being too short to quite get into the chair of her childhood, remembers the feeling of the fabric rubbing against her arms as she tried to find purchase to haul herself up into it when her mother wasn't around. She thinks about how her own child might form the same memories and begins to cry in earnest.

She doesn't speak about this much, about the hole in her chest the feels about the shape and size of her mother. Often, Lena doesn't think that she could find the words for it even if she wanted to.

How do you mourn a woman you hardly remember?

There's no one to ask, to gather details from in order to hold her closer, remember her fully. Perhaps Lionel would have told her, if she'd known to ask him when he was still alive. Perhaps, if she was very brave, Lena could have investigated on her own.

But the truth comes down to this: Lena can find herself struggling to remember her mother's name, some days.

The thought makes her cry harder, biting down on her lip to try and keep quiet. The baby moves again, unhappy and pressing up against Lena's ribcage.

Part of her fear is this, too. Her mother had been her whole world and then she had been gone in an instant, in the space of a breath. She had been smiling at Lena on the lakeshore in one moment and then she had fallen beneath the water in the next, never to return. And Lena remembers the ache in her chest, feels it still sometimes, the heaviness of absence, the knowledge of everything that may have been better, everything she may have avoided if her mother had resurfaced.

She'd never want to leave a child like that, she thinks.

There's some comfort in knowing that Kara would be there to hold their child's world together, some more in knowing the strength and resiliency of the family that Kara has built, the family that welcomed Lena and accepted her with warmth and care and love. Their child would not be left alone, that much Lena knows for certain; they would never know the same grinding loneliness that Lena feels creeping in the shadows on nights like these.

"Lena?" comes Kara's gentle voice, still in their bedroom but not for long. In the time it takes for Lena to suck in a single, shuddering breath, Kara must realize what's happening and then she's there beside her, faster than Lena can track, pushing back the hair in her face and wiping the tears from her cheeks.

"Sweetheart," Kara murmurs softly, so softly, breaking Lena's heart just to mend it again. "Come here."

Lena doesn't fight Kara as she scoops her up carefully, arranges them so that they're both curled up in the glider, Lena tucked up against Kara's chest. Why would she fight the care her wife is offering her? She knows that there was a time, not long ago, when she would have shied away from being seen like this, from being cared for like this. But they've both done a lot of work on themselves, on their relationship; Kara knows when to give her space and Lena knows when to not push for it.

They don't speak. Lena cries into the crook of her wife's neck until her eyes are itchy and her head is throbbing. Kara's arms are warm around her, grounding her to this life, to the home that they share, to the fact that she's not in this alone.

When Lena quiets, Kara presses a kiss to her temple. "What got you thinking?" she asks quietly.

"My mother." And when Kara opens her mouth, Lena clarifies. "Shannon, I mean."

A rush of air, as if Kara's deflated by the statement. "Oh."

Her arms tighten just a little, her hold a little firmer. They don't often discuss their shared grief – two motherless mothers, stumbling around in the dark. Eliza has done so much for them both, has raised and loved Kara just as she is, has accepted Lena and cared for her as if she had been doing so from the start. But the ache is still there, recognizable between the two of them. It's likely it won't ever really go away.

They stay like this for a long while, long enough so that the sun is beginning to crest over the city around them, the weak pink of sunrise filtering in through the shades over the windows.

"I'm going to call Snapper and let him know I'm taking the day," Kara tells her as the city comes to life below them. Somewhere further out in their home, Lena hears the gentle chimes of coffee maker turning on.

"Kara, that's not –," she starts to protest, until she looks up and is silenced by the look on her wife's face.

She looks raw. Stripped down and vulnerable, fear and worry and love in equal measures written across her face. Even down to the eyebrow crinkle.

Kara leans down to kiss her forehead, her touch warm. "Let's go back to bed," she says.

The baby kicks out once, twice, startling them both into giddy laughter. They've been kicking for quite some time now, but it's still a wonderful surprise when it seems like they do it in response to their voices.

"I think the kiddo agrees," Lena laughs, her voice still a little thick.

**...**

Despite being quite sore, Lena's not sure she's ever been so pleased to wake up in a hospital.

It's a bit of a tight squeeze, despite it being a queen bed that came with the outrageously expensive private suite Lena had booked. Between the IV and monitors that Lena's still attached to and the amount of pillows Kara had insisted on tucking behind her (which Lena grudgingly admits is helping relieve some of her discomfort), it's almost as if they're squeezed into a single together.

But despite all that – when Lena opens her eyes, she's greeted with Kara, still in the sweats and old NCU pullover she threw on in the rush to get to the hospital, gazing down at their son adoringly.

"I don't think I'll ever quite get over this," Kara murmurs. She's always been _superhumanly_ good at knowing exactly when Lena's woken up. "He's just…gorgeous," she marvels.

"He is," Lena agrees. How could she not? Despite how light his downy hair is – he nearly looks bald, Lena thinks – his lashes are dark and lush against his chubby, soft cheeks. Lena doesn't think she's ever seen a more perfect baby, and that's taking into account her own bias.

Kara manages to drag her attention away from their son – Lena's not sure how, really – and she turns her adoration to Lena. Even now, after all these years, she's still not entirely sure she's deserving of it, but she basks in it just the same.

"How are you feeling, Lee?" Kara asks, slipping one hand out from under Finn's swaddle to cup the back of Lena's head, bringing her in for a brief kiss.

Lena hums in contentment against her lips before she groans a little as she shifts back. Even with as little as she moved, she can feel the ache in her body spike. "Like I just went through the trial of childbirth," she grumbles half-heartedly, easing back against her pillow wall carefully.

Kara laughs, a delighted sound. "I'm not laughing at you," she promises, wrinkling her nose at Lena's look of faux-annoyance. "I just – we have a _child_, Lena."

And Lena can tell that she's searching for more words, but she doesn't need them – Lena knows, feels it just the same. This tender, open hearted thing that's sparked inside them, that's burning them up from the inside out in the best way. Lena could cry from happiness.

She does, actually, laughing as she wipes at her face and then laughing some more when she catches Kara doing the same thing, albeit awkwardly, her reach a little stunted with how she's holding Finn.

"Here," Lena says, reaching forward despite the sharp spike of pain. She wipes her wife's cheeks gently, her thumb brushing over her cheekbone, looking for any extra point of contact. "We have a child," she echoes, awestruck as she turns her attention back to their son, still slumbering in his mother's arms.

For all the pain and worry, all the fear and missteps – Lena can't fault them, can't bring herself to carry any residual anger or disappointment over things long past. Not if it brought them here.

Finn sleeps on in Kara's arms and Lena feels the insistent tug of sleep pulling at her too, her eyelids growing heavier by the second. The doctor had warned them that this could happen, that her body might need a little extra recovery time.

"You should sleep," Kara tells her softly. At Lena's drowsy look, she adds, "I'll wake you when it's time to feed him."

Well – there goes her argument.

As much as Lena would like to stay awake, her body has other plans. But here, in the quiet of their room and curled up beside her wife and child, Lena thinks that it might not be the worst to fall asleep like this again.

* * *

**...**


End file.
